Experimental and computational chemical studies on the corrosion inhibitive properties of carbonitrile compounds for carbon steel in aqueous solutions

The present work aims to study 6-amino-4-aryl-2-oxo-1-phenyl-1,2-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarbonitrile derivatives namely: 6-Amino-2-oxo-1,4-diphenyl-1,2-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarbonitrile (PdC-H), 6-Amino-2-oxo-1-phenyl-4-(p-tolyl)-1,2-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarbonitrile (PdC-Me) and 6-Amino-4-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-2-oxo-1-phenyl-1,2-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarbonitrile (PdC-OH) as corrosion inhibitors to provide protection for carbon steel in a molar hydrochloric acid medium. Chemical measurements such as (weight loss) and electrochemical techniques such as (Potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and Electron frequency modulation) were applied to characterize the inhibitory properties of the synthesized derivatives. The adsorption of these derivatives on the carbon steel surface was confirmed by Attenuated Total Refraction Infrared (ATR-IR), Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Our findings revealed that the tested derivatives have corrosion inhibition power, which increased significantly from 75.7 to 91.67% on the addition of KI (PdC-OH:KI = 1:1) to inhibited test solution with PdC-OH derivative at 25 °C. The adsorption process on the metal surface follows the Langmuir adsorption model. XPS analysis showed that the inhibitor layer consists of an iron oxide/hydroxide mixture in which the inhibitor molecules are incorporated. Computational chemical theories such as DFT calculations and Mont Carlo simulation have been performed to correlate the molecular properties of the investigated inhibitors with experimental efficiency. The theoretical speculation by Dmol3 corroborates with the results from the experimental findings.